Don't Say Ghostbuster, Say Spirit Plumber

By JOHN LELAND

Published: October 31, 2002

WINTHROP, Mass.—
IT was a dark and stormy night well, it was drizzly anyway -- and for the Atlantic Paranormal Society, things were taking a sudden dark turn. The group had come to this harbor town near Boston at the request of a young couple named Jeff and Bekka Caruso, who reported strange goings-on in their small, waterfront house. There had been barking noises, the couple said, and a dresser had inexplicably emptied its contents on Ms. Caruso.

The four-member team set up an infrared video camera and a laser thermometer. They fed an audio recorder into a frequency analyzer on a laptop computer. They interviewed the couple about the house: Had the Carusos noticed any strange fluctuations in temperature? Were they under inordinate stress? Had anybody used a Ouija board in the house?

So far, so good. Then somebody used the G word.

Jason Hawes, 30, the society's founder and leader, winced. Mr. Hawes is soft-spoken and prides himself on his professional demeanor. ''I wish you wouldn't call us ghostbusters,'' he said. ''We're paranormal researchers.'' It was going to be a long night.

In the it's-always-something world of domestic real estate, few quirks can unsettle a household quite like the presence of ghosts. For some homeowners, of course, these presences mean having someone to talk to after David Letterman goes off the air. For everyone else, there are groups like the Atlantic Paranormal Society scattered about the Internet, eager to investigate or to do battle with the visitors.

For the last 11 or 12 years the society, based in Warwick, R.I., has responded to domestic disturbances like eerie noises and signs of spirit possession. Mr. Hawes, who is by trade a plumber, said that the Web site (the-atlantic-paranormal-society.com) gets about 6,000 hits a day from around the world. October and November are the busiest months, he said, though the volume of ''cases'' also rises any time a scary movie is on television or in theaters. '' 'The Sixth Sense' almost killed us,'' he said.

While some groups charge for their services, Mr. Hawes's works strictly pro bono. ''The rich and poor both need help,'' he explained. ''Also, how can you charge for something that can't be proven to exist?'' He said he spent about $8,000 for the society's expenses last year, plus a couple of thousand on electronic equipment.

The group has about 25 steady members and occasionally consults with a network of similar organizations around the world. Members gather most Saturday nights at a Starbucks in Warwick before going out on cases as far away as Maine or New Jersey. On Sunday nights they convene to compare notes. Mr. Hawes, a father of three, said that his wife did not share his hobby. ''It interests her, but she's not willing to investigate,'' he said. ''She says, 'Just don't bring anything home with you.' ''

The work itself is not always glamorous.

Out of every 1,000 cases, Mr. Hawes said, about 750 turn out to be nothing more than noisy pipes, creaky boards or overactive imaginations. (His plumbing expertise comes in handy.) Recently, the group drove more than four hours to investigate strange noises coming from the walls of a house, only to find that the owner had hidden speakers in them. Mr. Hawes described this case in robustly disapproving language.

In another recent case, his team found no paranormal activity but evidence of extralegal recreation. ''We felt like asking, 'When you hear these noises, do you feel like eating Oreos?' '' said Heather Drolet, one of the investigators. She added that a cardinal rule for the group's members was to be sober on all cases.

On the drive to Winthrop, Mr. Hawes had outlined the categories of hauntings that might be found. The most benign are human hauntings, which divide into three types: intelligent spirits, which can converse with the living; residuals, which are leftover energies condemned to repeat one small action from their lives, like a recurring scene from a movie; and poltergeists, usually the spirits of young girls, which make a racket and can wreak havoc on property values. Residuals are the most common and can be difficult to expel. ''If a person can't accept it,'' Mr. Hawes said, ''they might as well move.''

Human spirits can lift only about 3 to 10 pounds, he said, and so are limited in the harm they can do. Usually, they just want to talk. Ms. Drolet, who described herself as a pagan, said that she was happy when she encountered human spirits in her parents' home in Pennsylvania. ''I told them, 'As a single mother, I need all the help I can get,' '' she said.

Inhuman hauntings, Mr. Hawes said, are a different kettle of ghouls. He interrupted his disquistion occasionally to puzzle over a computer printout of driving directions from Mapquest, which seems to be the bane of modern paranormal researchers.

Inhuman hauntings might involve demons, incubuses, succubi, nature spirits or angels, he explained. They can be vicious and deceitful. ''Never believe anything you hear from an inhuman haunting,'' Mr. Hawes advised, though the same advice has been applied to much of the fashion industry.